


Perigee

by natsubaki



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Bittersweet, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old Together, Loss, M/M, Married Life, Old Age, Post-Canon, Tokyo Ghoul: re, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5974054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsubaki/pseuds/natsubaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as they both shall live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perigee

**Author's Note:**

> This Valentine's Day, my gift to you is tears.

He has always been prone to fits of memory. This has been true for Tsukiyama since childhood; images and impressions are carved into him with startling clarity and return to him with ease whenever he calls upon them. But more often than not, they resurface when he least expects it. They accost him, render him vulnerable by waves of nostalgia passing over his mind and through his body, reawakening points of time that have long since had their moment. It’s one thing that Tsukiyama can say about himself with certainty, even in his advanced age—he remembers everything.

This is his second time in a wheelchair, but there is no chance of recovery at this stage in his life. His knees had been the first to give out, and then his hips had failed him after a fall a couple of years later (his kagune had sheltered him from most of the impact, although it had also been the reason for his imbalance). The immobility doesn’t bother Tsukiyama as much any longer: although his physical condition had still been reasonably good for his age, his life admittedly lacks the activity of his youth. His days are now spent reading, writing his memoirs, or listening to music, when he’s not being dragged back to the Diet to broker some deal or throw the weight of his name behind a cause. Instead, he views each bodily breakdown as another step towards the inevitable.

But his mind stays intact. Tsukiyama is grateful for this. Should his mind ever abandon him, he’d prefer to lie in the ground than to lie confined to a bed once again. At least before, he’d had memories to keep him company, however painful. Tsukiyama still doesn’t know how Kaneki had lived all those years under another name, knowing nothing about himself. Existing day after day in the hope of building something new to replace the old, or that the old would return and make him whole once again. The idea frightens Tsukiyama to his core.

He had lost his identity twice, although each time had been like the slipping of a mask. The Gourmet had been easy to lose; Tsukiyama Shuu, heir to the century-old Tsukiyama conglomerate, had been far harder. Yet through it all, he had still remained himself.

There are several times in Tsukiyama’s life where he legitimately thought he would die. The first had been when his kagune had first emerged: the shock and agony from such a heavy, uncontrollable object bearing upon his tiny frame had caused him to faint. Then several times after, when he’d grown a bit bigger, during training sessions with his father. Matsumae and Mairo, Tsukiyama had known, would never—could never—hurt him to the point of breaking, but his father, full of expectations, had been another story. His first encounter with a ghoul investigator, when he’d been fifteen and reckless. The abandoned church, when Kaneki, Touka, and Nishiki had rightfully left him to die. Two rooftops, connected by an extended withering and longing.

There had been the war. Tsukiyama doesn’t like to think back to those times, although his mind sometimes has other plans. Death—both promising and elusive—had been a near-constant presence towards the end, wearing a gown bathed in blood and destruction.

But they had made it through. He and Kaneki had grown older. Grown _together_ , wrinkles and all, into their thirties, forties, fifties. Had built and shared a home. Kaneki had been the one he’d closed his eyes to every night and woken up to every morning. They had known each other as no one else had known them, had harbored each other’s dreams and secrets. Those years had been the happiest of Tsukiyama’s life.

Kaneki had left him, this time for good, nearly six years ago. And for these past six years, Tsukiyama has willed himself to live, only because Kaneki had told him to do so. He would have gladly followed Kaneki anywhere, even into the afterlife, but Kaneki had insisted that Tsukiyama is still needed here. That Kaneki would wait for him.

“No matter what?” he had asked, nose pressed into the crook of Kaneki’s neck, hot tears sliding down his face and wetting the stack of pillows propping Kaneki up.

“No matter what,” Kaneki had answered, a squeeze of the hand.

At the very end, it had been the two of them. Hinami and Ayato had visited days before with their daughter and grandchild, Touka joining them in the small hospital room. Hori had come later, snapping a picture in a rare moment they both had fallen asleep. The photograph she had left leaning against the vase of flowers on Kaneki’s side table had been the only evidence that his little mouse had been there. Tsukiyama now carries it in his inner breast pocket, wherever he goes.

Their other friends have long since passed. They had died during the war or had been claimed by chance, or by their own bodies finally giving in. Papa had died having lived a full life, slipping off in his sleep. Tsukiyama still remembers his last words, spoken so selflessly: that his ultimate joy had been his only son finding the kind of happiness he’d once had with Tsukiyama’s mother. They had lost Hide just years before this, his human body falling victim to human disease. Soon after, Kaneki had started to develop symptoms.

It had started slowly, fatigue eating at Kaneki’s energy levels. They had thought nothing of it, until it had persisted, unwelcome. And then the fainting spells had struck, followed by nosebleeds, mysterious bruising, and a cough that would double him over. Fevers had come and gone, simultaneously burning Kaneki up and freezing him out.

Multiple organ failure, one after another. His body had begun to unravel from within.

Bones aching, Tsukiyama had climbed onto the bed with Kaneki, careful of the tubes, and they had held each other, hand-in-hand. Tsukiyama had listened to Kaneki’s heart beat until it was no longer.

He had lost Kaneki so many times, yet they had always found their way back to each other. Always restarting, as though there had never been an alternative: they had always been meant to be. Tsukiyama cannot be ungrateful.

An hour prior, Kaneki had told him, “You’ve made me so happy.”

And he had replied, “I don’t want you to go,” the words raw and thick through his tears.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Kaneki had said, so very quietly.

It had been no fault of his own. Artificial crossbreeds, it had turned out, did not live that long, their bodies having been tampered with. Kaneki had been an exception, with a lifespan almost twice as long as the others. Even in death, he had been special.

Arms had tightened around him, Kaneki clinging to life even as it left him. “You have to let me go this time.”

Tsukiyama hadn’t answered him. His body had shaken despite his best efforts to suppress his grief. He hadn’t wanted his last moments with Kaneki to be like this, the weight of “after” crushing them in its cruel embrace. He had felt so guilty for wasting their last precious minutes together, for ruining what would be their final memories in this lifetime.

Kaneki had known. Somehow, Kaneki had always known the things Tsukiyama hadn’t been able to say. “Thank you for spending your life with me,” he had said as he’d brushed tears from underneath Tsukiyama’s eyes.

It had all been so wrong. Tsukiyama should have been the one expressing his gratitude over the gift Kaneki had given him, comforting him at the close. So instead, he had mustered the best smile he could offer. “We’ve had quite the life together.” If Tsukiyama looked closely, he could see the years they were denied reflected in the depths of Kaneki’s eyes.

Kaneki had not wept at the end. Of the two of them, he had always been the stronger one.

After, Tsukiyama had seen Kaneki off. The body had been arranged to look as though Kaneki had merely been sleeping, although his spirit had no longer been present. Everything had been white—too white. Tsukiyama had tucked flowers around his face—asters, red and white camellias, pink roses, and sweet osmanthus; a sprig of forget-me-not behind his ear; a cluster of lavender pressed into his hands—and had held back tears as bright, roaring flames had consumed the coffin. Tsukiyama had stood there for a long time, hearing nothing, until he had been respectfully ushered away. There had been no passing of bones. The ashes had been sealed into a box and buried in the Tsukiyama family plot, awaiting Tsukiyama’s own imminent arrival.

He had kept Kaneki’s ring.

Tsukiyama had been sixty-seven years old, yet he had cried like a child the entire night and into the morning, lying despondent in a strikingly empty bed, fearful of yet another life without Kaneki. Fearful of having fallen back into bed, never to leave it this time. He had wanted to feel angry, to rage at the twisted world they had been born into and at the changing world that had arrived too late for them, but there had been nothing but an empty cavern in his chest. The truth of the matter had been that that same twisted world had brought them together. A sinking feeling, starting at the edges of his body and creeping toward its center, had settled in his gut. It had felt as though hands had slithered from the darkness of the room, grabbing and pulling him down, chaining him to the bed. It would have been easy to surrender.

But Kaneki hadn’t wanted that. “There’s still so much that you can do,” he had said, his grip on Tsukiyama’s arms so tight and his gaze so clear. “Please.” Kaneki had rarely asked for anything, and Tsukiyama could never deny him. Kaneki had known this, too.

And so Tsukiyama had awoken the next morning and had fought his way out of bed. Showered and brushed his teeth. Dressed in his usual attire. Choked down two cups of tasteless coffee. Reported to work, eyes tired and bruised, his hands housing an uncontrollable tremble. He had repeated it until it had become a pattern he could live by.

 _Take your time; don’t push yourself_ , people had sympathized with him between hushed whispering and stolen glances. But they hadn’t understood. Tsukiyama wouldn’t say he is used to this kind of thing, but forging ahead had been a necessity for survival. It had been yet another restarting of the rest of his life. He had _needed_ to find meaning in living each day into the next, a constant struggle to not relinquish himself to numbness.

It hadn’t been easy. Grief strikes when he least expects it, crashing down onto him and sweeping him away. Sometimes he has to excuse himself before the sobs take over, loud and ugly. Tsukiyama knows he will never recover from such a loss, despite for all intents and purposes, it appears as though he has moved on with his life. Logic tells him that the separation is only temporary. It’s hard to keep that fact in perspective when sadness is the only emotion he can recognize.

Sometimes Tsukiyama wants to fade away; other times, he fiercely clutches to his existence, determined to fulfill his last promise to Kaneki.

He still mourns the past. There are times when Tsukiyama believes he had taken his fortune for granted, and as punishment, it had systematically been stripped away. He knows how crazy, how egotistical, it sounds—the universe does not work like that.

It doesn’t make it any easier. Tsukiyama has left Kaneki’s side of their room untouched. Sometimes, before the wheelchair, he had collapsed in the closet they had shared, nesting himself within Kaneki’s old clothes. His scent still lingers, after all this time. Tsukiyama commits it to memory over and over and over.

Sometimes, he chases fragments of his life through old photographs. The picture albums are heavy in his arthritic hands, but carried within their womb is the story of their life. Candid shots and celebratory poses join together, creating a patchwork of moments on page. It aches to look upon them, but Tsukiyama finds a certain solace in succumbing to memory. It reminds him that it had been real. That he is so, so very lucky.

And now it is his time.

Tsukiyama is glad for it. The past several years have been unbearably lonely, but he had persevered and had made the best of it, helped craft the world into one where there would be no more stories like Kaneki’s. He hopes Kaneki is proud of him.

Staring into the long mirror near his dresser from his wheelchair, Tsukiyama examines his reflection. His hair is streaked with silver, and fine wrinkles have gathered around his eyes and mouth. He looks dignified, as a man of his stature should. He still resembles more of his mother than his father. He doesn’t exactly look the seventy-three of his age. Kaneki, at sixty-four, hadn’t, either, although his hair had gone completely white again.

In the grand scheme of things, Tsukiyama is still young. But his body had faced massive regenerations of its own, too many brushes with death, prolonged exposure to experimental anti-ghoul chemicals.

In the end, his heart is the thing that is failing him.

Tsukiyama is an old man. He has borne witness to a great many things that will be relegated to history books, has been an actor on the grand stage within its pages. He is ready.

He hopes Kaneki is still waiting. He has kept Kaneki waiting for so long.

Tsukiyama wheels over to the open window and closes his eyes, soaking in the warmth. A gentle, clean breeze tickles his nose. He leans back in his wheelchair and rests his hands over his lap. Fills his lungs with the scent of spring and sunshine. He had just celebrated a birthday not too long ago. Kaneki had left him in the fall, the same season that they had met. Tsukiyama folds his hands over the weathered band of gold and warms it between his palms.

Behind his eyelids, there is a shifting of light—a flicker of shadow. He opens them.

Kaneki is there, looking as youthful as he had on their wedding day. His hair is a rich black, and life glows within his cheeks. His smile is so radiant. He holds out his hand.

Tsukiyama’s heart beats harder than it ever had in his life, a swan song just for his ears.

There hadn’t been any doubt that this day, this encounter, would blessedly arrive.

“Come to reap me?” Tsukiyama murmurs, breath caught in his throat. He smirks despite himself, a low chuckle escaping. He had forgotten what laughter had felt like. “You sure know how to keep a man waiting. Well, that’s okay.” He rises from his wheelchair. There is no creaking of joints, and the ever-present pain that has wracked his body has melted away. He grasps Kaneki’s hand in his.

Together, they start again.

**Author's Note:**

> I know. Even I got sad while I was writing this. Ojii-san tsukikane messes me up but I want it so bad lol;;;


End file.
